Werth, Bogdan (2010) Uncertainty in IT Outsourcing of Large Financial Institutions, Doctoral Thesis, Manchester Metropolitan
University Business School, Manchester, United
Kingdom.

Abstract

According to the recent industry reports, relatively
few European banks have benefited from information technology
outsourcing to the extent originally anticipated by these institutions.
Despite the setbacks, most intended to increase outsourcing activities
in pursuit of reduced labour costs, specialized skills, process
expertise, superior technical resources, and enable a better focus on
their core business. Whether or not these reasons are justified,
outsourcing often has unexpected impacts, both positive and negative,
on the operation of an organisation.

Despite the lack of a commonly accepted interpretation of outsourcing
outcomes, the practice of outsourcing in modern corporations is
proliferating. This trend has forced both practitioners and academics
to theorize and speculate on the underlying momentum towards
outsourcing. So far the information technology outsourcing literature
has mainly focused on the transaction itself, without investigating the
strategic characteristics of the organization leaving out of sight a
built-in social framework of the firm or social context it is located
in. This trend captures the widely held perception that organisational
members makeoutsourcing decisions based upon an economic rationale and
regard social factors as negligible in an overall picture of
outsourcing.

Agent-based modelling provides us with a tool for examining the
implications of various social and organizational choices within
organisations. This thesis examines how this can be done in the case of
choosing to outsource (or not) the information technology needs within
large banking organisations. This thesis introduces an alternative
approach to the investigation of economic theories by means of
evidence-based agent-based social simulation. It suggests and seeks an
alternative metric for asset specificity with a more qualitative
flavour. Williamson’s transaction cost framework is replicated with
autonomous, heterogeneous agents as actors of the modelled outsourcing
process that can act according to changes in the environment they are
located in. Social structures emerge from the interaction and
information exchange between individuals in the market. The models
succeed in producing a qualitative definition of the term asset
specificity.

The modelling and the fieldwork were carried out by the same party with
data engineering involving stakeholder interactions. A constructive and
modular approach to model design was adopted. The rules for the agents’
behaviour were derived partly from the relevant reports and partly from
qualitative insight into the modelled target system. The first research
stage involved gathering of relevant data in collaboration with
industry partners. Based upon data collected from the fieldwork a
prototype declarative agent-based coarse grained model was developed.
Building a “mock-up” model first was intended in order to point out
data requirements, and help to determine which data is important and
which can be dismissed. This model allowed the identification of gaps
in the current data set that need to be filled in order to develop a
more informative model. In subsequent research stages additional
interviews were conducted in order to fill gaps, which became evident
through the analysis of the mock-up model. Exploration and validation
of the models’ results happened in a constant feedback-loop, together
with domain experts. The constant cross validation with stakeholders
and domain experts facilitated the development of a simulation that was
credible for practitioners, who came to participate in the research
with sceptical views. This particular case study is presented as an
example of a generalised approach that can be used to examine different
aspects of organisational change.

07 November, 2011

PhD Studentship at the Centre for Policy Modelling
as part of the EPSRC-funded SCID project

(re-advertised due to an appointed candidate dropping out for personal reasons)

Stipend: £13,290 per annum + applicable fees
From time of appointment up to August 2015 maximum

Centre for Policy Modelling
Manchester Metropolitan University Business School

Applications are invited students to work on modelling projects
associated with the EPSRC project: the Social Complexity of
Immigration and Diversity (SCID). This project is in association with
the University of Manchester's Institute for Social Change and its
Department of Theoretical Physics. This is a high-profile and
ambitious project that aims to develop a new approach to using
simulations to gain understanding of important social issues. The
project is from September 2010 to August 2015 so the studentship will
have to be finished by then.

The period of study will involve the development of detailed
agent-based simulations reflecting as much of the evidence as possible
about a case study from one of 3 areas (for details see the project
description):
* Diversity, homophily and social trust
* Socio-political integration
* Socio-economic inequality

The evidence will be provided by experts at the Institute for Social
Change. The central challenge of the PhD will be to integrate as much
of this evidence as possible within Agent-based Simulations. For more
details see the project description at: http://scid-project.org.

Applicants should preferably have a Masters-level degree in a relevant
discipline, preferably with an element of computer science or
computational social science. The candidate should thus have a
reasonable level programming and/or simulation experience. An ability
to learn to program simulations is a must. Knowledge
of sociology in one of the above areas is also an advantage. The
candidate has to be an EU national.

The CPM is one of the few research centres in the world that
specialises on social simulation. Since its inception in 1992 it has
developed its unique blend of trans-disciplinary research, crossing
the areas of: artificial intelligence, complexity science, philosophy
and computational social science (to get an idea of its scope browse
its discussion papers). It has built up a reputation and track-record
over that time being involved in a number of EU and UK projects
(Ocopomo, EMIL, Nania, NeWater, GIACS, CAVES, CCDEW, FIRMA, IMIS).
The CPM is a happy, informal but creative lab. For more information
about the work of the Centre see its website at http://cfpm.org

For informal discussions about the post, contact
Bruce Edmonds on +44 (0) 161 3886 or email to bruce@edmonds.name.

22 October, 2011

the 8th European Social Simulation Association Conference (ESSA 2012) will take place in Salzburg, Austria, September 10-14, 2012. It will be hosted by the Social Geography Research Group at the University of Salzburg. A first circular will be disseminated in November 2011.

This
satellite workshop was about policy modelling with a focus on innovation
policy. Policy modelling means to identify
areas, which need intervention, to specify the desired state of the target
system, to find the regulating mechanisms, policy formation and implementation,
and to control and evaluate the robustness of interventions. The methodological difficulty hereby is to bridge the gap
between policy practice often expressed in qualitative and narrative terms and the
scientific realm of formal models. Furthermore, policymaking in complex social systems is
no clear-cut cause-effect process but characterised by contingency and
uncertainty. To take into account
technological, social, economic, political, cultural, ecological and other
relevant parameters, policy modelling has to be enhanced and supported by new
ICT-oriented research initiatives. Reviewing the current state-of-the-art of
policy context analysis such as forecasting, foresight, backcasting, impact
assessment, scenarios, early warning systems, and technology roadmapping, the
need for policy intelligence dealing with complexity becomes more and more
obvious.

Both
days were opened by invited keynote speakers. On the first day, John Casti,
showed in his keynote “Computational modelling and the complexity of policy”
how what he termed complexity overload acts
as the root cause of extreme events in all social environments, how social mood
theory and agent-based modelling can help us develop tools to anticipate such
events, and how this approach worked in case studies for the Finnish and
Scottish policy sponsors within the Game Changers project of the IIASA Xevents
activity.

This opened the floor for a day on the relation of complexity-based
policy domains and ICT. We had presentations reporting concrete experiences
with computational requirements and tools for policy modelling (José Javier
Alba Sánchez,Luca Minghini andGianluca Misuraca), and more exploratory
studies about the possibility to create a general computational
framework which uses evidence-based policy making to encapsulate socio-economic
principles for creating enduring institutions for smart infrastructure
management (Jeremy Pitt). Existing simulation models of technological
evolution, knowledge dynamics and the emergence of innovation networks were
introduced and discussed for validation potential to be relevant or
stakeholders (Christopher Watts). There has been methodological progress in
interpreting models’ processes and results, but relevance is still largely
theoretical and reliability of validation procedures is incipient (Pablo Lucas).Case studies using specific models for
innovation policy modelling were then presented such as two studies adapting
and developing the SKIN model (Simulating
Knowledge Dynamics in Innovation Networks; http://cress.soc.surrey.ac.uk/SKIN/), a study
for DG INFSO on ex-ante evaluation of the FP7 successor programme Horizon 2020 (Petra Ahrweiler, Michel Schilperoord, Nigel Gilbert and
Andreas Pyka), and a simulation of the Vienna biotech cluster and its socio-economic
dynamics, with a special focus on the influence of public research funding on
its innovation performance (Manuela Korber and Manfred Paier). To assist
policymakers with simulation results (e.g. Ozge Kalkan on waste resources
markets), specific attention was drawn to modelling decision making processes
(Diane Payne).

In
Policy Modelling there is an uneasy relationship between two different worlds:
the "hard" "scientific" world of measurement, data, and
analytic/computer modelling, mostly occupied by academics who see themselves as
aiming for the truth behind complex socio-political systems and the
"soft" world of "policy practice", where human
understanding, communication and pragmatic decision making predominate, mostly
occupied by pressure groups, advisers, politicians and consultants whose aim is
to make acceptably good decisions.This
depth of this divide seems to be due to the complexity of human socio-political
phenomena. It results in a distinction between two communities who are thinking
about the same problems of policy making, and makes effective combination of
these approaches difficult. Those in the field have sometimes downplayed this
divide, but it makes for a real and substantial obstacle.From the "scientific" point of view
the policy side can seem to deliberately ignore the complexity of the
phenomena, to not care about the truth and with a tendency to look for
justifications for decisions that have already been made. From the
"policy" side the scientific approach can seem to be politically
naive, remote, inarticulate, and useless in the sense that they almost never
will give straight recommendations but rather just abstract explanation in ways
that are often difficult to understand.However both sides are often motivated to try and bridge this divide,
sensing that better decisions might be facilitated as a result.

The
second day of the workshop focussed on the issues, ways and approaches for
bridging this gap. This is timely since complexity science could be a bridging
stone in this exercise, for the first time allowing the possibility of building
such bridges in a well-founded manner. The papers and discussion at the
workshop showed that the topics are very relevant and topical in today’s world,
but still largely unresolved. Overcoming these difficulties calls for a deeper
attention to human specific features, such as: immediacy, cognition, language,
understanding, and interpretation, but it also showed that complexity science
might be able to help and thus accommodate these features and, ultimately, to
support effecting improvements in everyday policy practices.

The papers
presented also showed that the dramatic progress of ICT can help with this
project, by facilitating the acquisition and immediate use of stakeholder
narratives, allowing their “situated experiences” to directly feedback into the
policy process.Dave Snowden’s keynote
presentation showed how implicit ground-level feedback techniques, by-passing
the traditional slow modelling process, can be used to improve the guidance of
policy by feeing the flow of information from those involved to the policy
makes in a more direct manner.This was
echoed in Bruce Edmonds’ analogy between how the control problem in AI/robotics
mirrors that of active policy formation. Sylvie Occelli pointed out that
modelling might be used as both an activity as well as an artefact, that
modelling could be a mediator engaging a wider selection of experts and
stakeholders in the policy making process.As an activity it can aid the integration between the humanistic world
of understanding, and that of the scientific world of data.As an artefact it can be an element in the
policy debate alongside other means of expression.

Two of the speakers: Giovanni
Rabino, and also Magdalena Bielenia-Grajewska chose to examine the important
role of language in the policy making process, whilst John
Sutcliffe-Braithwaite argued for a meta-modelling language for specifying and
talking about policy and social issues. However, the debate also showed that
this potential is still underexploited in current policy practice. In this
respect, much further research was indicated, in particular how policy
modelling might be used as a way to build different mixes of argumentative and
syntactic approaches and so improve the production of policies over the long
run.

09 September, 2011

We would like to invite you to attend the satellite “Policy Modelling”, as part of the European Conference on Complex Systems ECCS 2011, on Wednesday, 14th and Thursday 15th of September, 2011, at Aula, Campus University of Vienna, Spitalgasse 2.The
'Policy Modelling' workshop at the European Conference on Complex
Systems (ECCS 2011), Vienna, September 2011 will bring together new
research on Policy Modelling as it intersects the area of complexity
science. Broadly speaking this includes research on how complexity
models and simulation can be used to improve and inform the policy
making process.

In particular the workshop will focus on three key overlapping themes:

01 April, 2011

Following the successful first ESSA Summer School on Agent-Based Modelling, held in Brescia, Italy in September 2010, a second Summer School will be held on 18-22 July 2011 at the University of Surrey, Guildford.

The Summer school is aimed at those who have a basic understanding of social simulation and are taking their first steps in agent-based modelling. It is expected that most participants will be actively engaged in developing a simulation model.
The programme will consist of two lectures per day from experienced modellers, together with group sessions led by experienced researchers when participants can discuss their modelling plans and experience. The lectures will focus on the stories behind successful examples of agent-based modelling, and will cover issues from defining a research question to writing effective reports.
Lecturers and researchers will include:

Iqbal Adjali (Unilever, UK)

Edmund Chattoe-Brown (University of Leicester, UK)

Ozge Dilaver Kalkan (University of Surrey, UK)

Bruce Edmonds (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)

Nigel Gilbert (University of Surrey, UK)

Lynne Hamill (University of Surrey, UK)

Iris Lorscheid (Technische Universität Hamburg-Harburg, Germany)

Paul Ormerod (Volterra Consulting, UK)

Mauricio Salgado (University of Surrey, UK)

Flaminio Squazzoni (University of Brescia, Italy)

Pietro Terna (University of Torino, Italy)

Warren Thorngate (Carleton University, Canada)

Klaus G Troitzsch (University of Koblenz, Germany)

Christopher Watts (University of Surrey, UK)

By the end of the Summer School, students can expect to have absorbed a great deal of 'tacit' knowledge about how to go about model building, as well as having had opportunities to discuss their research with experts and peers.

The Summer School welcomes postgraduate students, post-doctoral researchers, and professionals.

Application procedure

Please send a brief CV, a summary of your current research, including a description of modelling planned or achieved and, if you are a postgraduate student a letter of support from your supervisor, as attachments to an email with the subject line "ESSA Summer School application' to lu.yang@surrey.ac.ukThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it by 15 March 2011 at the latest. Notification of acceptance/rejection will be send out by 1 April 2011.

Fees: deadline 15 April, 2011

For university and research institute students, including bed and breakfast (B&B) on the University Campus: £350

For staff of Higher Education institutions, including B&B on the University Campus: £450

For others, not including accommodation: £400

For others, with B&B on the University Campus: £600

Registration fees include lunches, coffee/tea during the day and a social dinner. The University accommodation is in single rooms with shared bathroom.
We do NOT accept late registrations. Registration will not be confirmed unless the payment is received.Terms: If cancelled before 15 April 2011, no fee will be charged. If cancelled later or in case of no-show, the total price of the registration will be charged.

Bursaries

ASSYST are providing up to five bursaries to assist PhD students, each worth up to €300. To apply, ask your supervisor to include a statement of why you should be awarded a bursary in the letter of support you will send as part of your application. Priority in awarding the bursaries will be given to those who have no alternative means of funding their attendance at the Summer School. Bursaries will be given to the successful applicants at the summer school in July. It cannot be provided at the time of registration.
Bursary for UK applicants only: The UK National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM) is offering training bursaries to UK staff engaged in research, teaching research methods or supervising research. For further information about the bursaries and to apply please see http://www.ncrm.ac.uk/about/funding/training/

Contact

Please send an email to lu.yang@surrey.ac.ukThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
The Summer school is sponsored by the SIMIAN project, Unilever Plc. and the University of Surrey, to whom we are grateful for their support.